


Out of the Ashes

by LittleDidTheyKnow



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Family, Femship, MCU FemShip, Team
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-05 02:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12181311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleDidTheyKnow/pseuds/LittleDidTheyKnow
Summary: Matt Murdock would never have expected the fallout from his "death" when a building collapsed on top of him.He left behind two people whose friendship he'd all but destroyed just a few months before, and four or five others whom he'd only known for a little more than a day, but definitely felt his loss in a big way.Each one of them try to get by in their own way; it's all they really can do. But his return to the land of the living is not only confusing, it's fraught with consequence. For reasons he doesn't understand, every aspect of his life goes up in flames.Then Wilson Fisk gets out of prison.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few things: This used to be called "Assembling the Friends of the Defenders."  
> I’m doing something new here, and that’s posting a story I DON'T intend to finish.
> 
> This should still be good reading to people who are desperate for season 3, but if you're one of those kinds of people who hate starting something that won't get finished, I recommend you read these chapters as a sort of... sequence of one-shots. 
> 
> I’ve been thinking about this fic for about 11 months. I was heartbroken after the Defenders and it was cathartic to write. This is my season 3 without a full plan; just some of the things I think will/could happen
> 
> Also, Trish walker was written into this pre-JJS2. I really want to erase her from this, because I hate her now (sorry) so that might happen after the fact. So much for the journalism buddies I'd envisioned. Trish is the worst.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen Page is distraught because Matt Murdock never came back from Midland Circle Financial. 
> 
> She never had plans to see the strangers who watched her crumble in that precinct after her world fell apart. 
> 
> That is until she ran into Trish Walker.

It was almost funny how the Defenders unofficially assembled after Midland Circle.  
  
It all started with Karen Page.  
  
For a little more than a day, she sat in a precinct with several strangers who shared a common thread. She barely spoke to anyone else, but she took note of who they were, beginning with Trish Walker.  
  
Trish was a bit of a Manhattan celebrity, and Karen listened to her radio show frequently. She had so many questions for the surrogate sister of Jessica Jones, but she kept them to herself as she and Trish talked in code next to a board displaying the destructive movements of the Hand.  
  
But the list of questions Karen had for the radio host disintegrated the moment Matt Murdock didn't come back. She had no plans to see any of the other friends of the Defenders again, with the exception of Foggy Nelson. That all changed two weeks later when she ran into Trish outside of a random bar.  
  
Trish gave her a sad smile that said everything and made Karen shrink inside herself.  
  
She was one of the few people who understood why she cried constantly and questioned every decision she had made in the last year.  
  
Trish Walker knew how to get a person to open up without much convincing. Karen often wondered how she persuaded her to have a drink that day. But general moments in time were kind of a blur to her these days. All she knew was that she was sharing a pitcher of beer with a talk show host within minutes of running into her.  
  
To the world, Midland Circle didn’t happen. It was a construction failure or the use of poor building materials - some lie to convince the public that there was never an evil plot that would have destroyed New York. Karen didn't remember what it ended up being and she didn't care.  
  
Karen gazed into Trish's green eyes as she told her about how Jessica didn’t want to draw attention to what they did to save the city. Karen never spoke to Jessica, but that admission made her like the private eye instantly.  
  
Trish saw Karen's small smile and understood one of the many reasons Jessica did what she did. “I always forget that recognition for your hero is probably the last thing you and your blonde friend would have ever wanted.”  
  
“His name is Foggy.” She wiped the tear that escaped her eye and continued. “This city needs heroes, Trish, but…”  
  
“Daredevil’s memory could be ruined for saving the world?”  
  
Karen took a drink of her beer and shrugged.  
  
“You mean your lawyer’s memory could be ruined for saving the world.”  
  
Karen looked up dumbstruck. She always noticed things about those around her, but she was less perceptive to what she herself gave away. She tried to be careful most days, but that was the last thing she worried about on the day that her world fell apart.  
  
“People don’t even know that Daredevil was involved…”  
  
“Do you really think that it would ruin your life and Foggy’s life if it got out?”  
  
Her voice was stern and laced with dread. “You don’t?”  
  
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll never know.”  
  
She sniffled behind her pint glass and took another drink.  
  
“We are worried about you… At least Malcolm and Jess and me…”  
  
“You don’t even know me.” Karen felt terrible for saying it, but at this point, she couldn't think about the feelings of others. She could barely do simple things like brush her teeth and feed herself.  
  
Trish didn't act offended. “Whether we spoke much or not, we all went through something." She reached across the table and grabbed Karen's hand. "We all saw what happened when one of our heroes doesn’t come back.”  
  
Karen saw tears in her new friend’s eyes as she said what each of them had worried about daily. She squeezed the fingers that wrapped around her hand and smiled sadly.  
  
“Matt didn’t have special powers that could protect him from injury, Trish. He was just a man. A gifted man, but not a Jessica Jones or a Luke Cage. They are going to be fine…”  
  
Trish nodded as she stared at her glass and said what she had never been able to say out loud. “She may be strong, but she’s not bulletproof.”  
  
“She’ll be fine, Trish. I know she will be.” Trish nodded as Karen tried her best to make her feel better. But Karen saw right through her pathetic nod that she believed her.  
  
Because "he'll be fine" was a lie that she had told herself hundreds of times. And it never helped her either. 

* * *

That’s how it started. One almost-stranger consoling another over the loss of a loved one, the other consoling her for what she worried was to come. But it turned into something more with time.  
  
Because Trish Walker and Karen Page had something in common - an inability to listen when they were being shut down and a thirst for the truth.  
  
So they met every week to vent about what they were going through at work, or exchanged information about problems in Hell’s Kitchen that didn't make sense and weren't questioned. It felt professional at first, but it turned into joking about the little things their Defender had done - or, for Trish, still did. They talked about working in the media and their goals. And they talked about Karen’s feelings for the man who died before he had a chance to truly fix things with her.  
  
They became friends.  
  
From there, Malcolm Ducasse inserted himself. He always had a way of doing that.  
  
That led to Foggy Nelson joining them for a drink - or four.  
  
And then Claire Temple, Colleen Wing, and Misty Knight.  
  
That was how the friends of the Defenders club started out, though they didn’t call it that.  
  
It wasn't that simple for the Defenders themselves.  
  
Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand kept their distance from each other because they didn't want to talk about the one that didn’t come back. It hurt too much and they felt they were to blame. So they dealt with their pain the only way they knew how: alone.  
  
That all changed when Matt Murdock came back.


	2. Chapter 2

There wasn’t a funeral for Matt Murdock. 

Most of the people he’d known before he’d met his best friend Foggy Nelson were dead. Both sets of grandparents had passed before his seventh birthday and he assumed his mother had died for his own mental health. Once he lost his father, he was completely alone. It was the reason he’d ended up in an orphanage at ten years old. Elektra had seen to Stick’s bloody end, and everyone was fairly sure she’d perished at Midland Circle along with Matt himself. 

The rest of his friends, both old and brand new held onto the knowledge that Matt Murdock would rather have people thinking he disappeared then potentially be tied to his secret identity. It wasn’t out of embarrassment, but fear that the two most important people in his life would go down without him. It was a superhero and vigilante code: if you knew a secret that damning, you took it with you to your grave. 

After the elimination of the Hand, the Defenders left a claustrophobic police precinct with more than just a firm grasp on what mattered to them. They also left with sadness and guilt.

Guilt for the two people who were left shattered after their greatest fear had been realized: they didn’t have the person they came with. Guilt that there may have been something more they could have done. And those two people weren’t the ones who watched as Matt’s only way out was severed and sent down a 300-foot hole. Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand had barely so much as said the words as they looked at two shattered humans who didn’t have answers. And they knew that that wasn’t closure. 

So the silent Defenders left with their heads hanging low and left Foggy Nelson and Karen Page in their pained states. Foggy accepted what he’d known had been a possibility for a year. The surprising calm that washed over him scared everyone that cared about him, including himself. He knew it was laced with pain, but pain was manageable. He hated that he had prepared himself for the worst; it was almost like he had asked for it. 

Karen took a different approach: denial. 

She wanted cold, hard facts. There wasn’t a body, and she didn’t see him go inside the building that fell. She waited for news of corpses being removed from the rubble like it was a job. 

Not a single white male with brown hair covered in a red mask with devil horns. Even in New York, you’d hear about something about that.

The one thing she could have done was locate each of the Defenders and _ask_ for details. She ignored the fact that it was the most logical solution and she was avoiding doing so because she couldn’t handle first-hand accounts of Matt going inside and never coming out. 

So Karen sifted through information that made her feel an emptiness in her stomach and her heart. The level of torture she allowed herself to go through was sickening, really. 

After three and a half weeks, she felt a painful thought seep in. _Maybe he’s really gone._ That was the second time she visited Father Lantom since her defender died. Or, rather, it was him who visited her. 

She sat in a pew that had sadly become the go-to location for when the people of Nelson & Murdock experienced loss. 

“Are you alright, Ms. Page?”

She looked at the flickering lights from the rows of votive candles and a solitary tear fell from her eye. He smiled gently and took a seat next to her as the wooden pew creaked below him. 

“I haven’t been _alright_ for a long time, Father Lantom.”

The voice that came from her mouth didn’t sound like her. It was huskier— like she hadn’t spoken to a soul or had a drink of water for days. 

Her hand shook on her thigh and she clenched it into a fist, her instant reflex for when the urge happened, which was quite often these days. She let go, but her hand still shook. Father Lantom touched her shoulder and the tears came immediately. It had been the most physical contact she’d had in weeks. 

“Would you care to talk about it?” She didn’t answer him for a solid minute, but she knew the amount of time she took wasn’t important.

“I—“ Her voice broke on the word. She was going to turn him down because she knew the moment she started, she’d lose it. But she couldn’t do it. Not with him. 

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Father Lantom. I’ve lost so many people I care about.” She wiped her eyes angrily. “It’s starting to feel like… It’s starting to feel like the people that get close to me don’t have a chance… Like I’m the common denominator.”

“You know I’ve heard that same sentiment expressed before, actually.” Father Lantom said. “Only this person was convinced that _he_ was the problem.”

Karen couldn't believe it when she heard the chuckle leave her mouth. “ _Of course_ he thought that.” She rubbed her temple as if it would cancel out the guilt she had for making fun if him in her own mind. ”That man put everything on his shoulders. As if that was any way to live. Not _everything_ was his fault.”

Maybe not _everything_ , but certainly some things.

Father Lantom broke his own rule and laughed about Matt’s undeniable martyrdom. ”Matthew never gave himself a break. He didn’t see that as a shortcoming despite my many attempts to tell him so.”

Hearing his name said out loud sent a sharp pang through her heart. Her lip quivered as she blinked her eyes and nodded. It was the most she could do. 

“Karen, Matthew… Matthew was not like most people. He had more strength than I’ve witnessed in anyone, really.”

The “was” in that sentence was impossible to overlook. “So you’ve accepted… You think he’s really gone?”

“I just take what I’m told and hope that—” the door to the church opened behind him as a woman walked to the confessional and took a seat. He spoke slightly above a whisper. ”—That _wherever_ he is, he’s at peace. I may be able to accept that, but I know it’s not that easy for most. What do _you_ think Ms. Page?”

“I think…” She sighed angrily. “I think I’m losing hope. I’ve been so sure, even after all the times I’ve been told that he wasn’t coming back and I needed to move on. But this feeling in my stomach tells me he’s somewhere. Somewhere near…” her voice broke and she blinked away the tears. “I haven’t prayed much before…. It always felt wrong because it was the opposite of what I’ve been told my entire life, Father… But with Matt? I’ve prayed every day that this God that he loved… That he wouldn’t rip him from this world when he had so much good to do. After everything he’s been through…”

“I would never tell you to lose faith, Ms. Page. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it will take time for him to return to you. He always said that you and Foggy were important to him. I don’t think he’d let you go through this if he could find you…”

She wasn’t so sure. 

“If he’s gone… if he's really gone, I… I don't know if I'll ever get over it, Father Lantom. I just feel like I can’t do this without him… 

“I know it’s hard, and that's not going to go away any time soon; loss doesn't work that way, unfortunately. But if there's one thing I know about you, Ms. Page, it's that you are strong. Matthew always said so. He believed you could do absolutely anything.”

He couldn’t say any more than that. Not that Matt loved her beyond friendship or that she was the reason he wanted to make the city a better place. That his fear of abandonment led him down a path of recklessness and self-sabotage. And losing her was the greatest regret of his life. 

Tears streamed from her eyes and Father Lantom broke another one of his rules: he put his arm around her. She turned her face into his shoulder and shook her head against him. His own feeling of loss bubbled up and he blinked away tears. 

All she had left of Matt Murdock were memories of their time together, small sound bites that made her sink inside herself, and pain. 

She hated that with each passing day a feeling she tried to ignore grew stronger. 

Soon she was going to have to accept the fact that the man she loved was never coming back.


	3. Chapter 3

Marci Stahl snorted into her hand as her boyfriend whispered something into her ear. 

Karen didn’t even hear the punchline; she just stared at the tv and sighed. She didn’t use to feel like a third wheel. She could thank Foggy and Marci for that. They liked to play like their relationship wasn’t real, but at this point, it was clear that they were in love. And if it was obvious to people a block away, it was definitely obvious to one of their best friends. 

Karen watched as Foggy rubbed his girlfriend’s back two cushions away from her and Marci yawned, leaning into him. She smiled sadly and went to her happy place: one where the man she desperately missed was sitting right next to her. But he was long gone. 

It had been a month, and Matt Murdock still hadn’t resurfaced. Deep down she really, truly believed he was alive. She didn’t consider herself optimistic. She was actually ridiculously pragmatic. Not when it came to Matt. 

She knew that things had ended horribly between them. Their budding relationship, their friendship, their professional relationship. All of that had blown up in the span of a few days and they’d barely spoken to each other since. 

But none of that mattered in the aftermath of his death. 

She tried telling herself it was her who put space between them. She had decided to cut him off for months, even if it was his fault. But nitpicking facts don’t matter when you’re experiencing grief. Every happy or mediocre moment replayed in her head like an old home movie. All the times he took one of her potstickers without asking and smiled in a way that said, “you know you love me.” Every time he chose to get her favorite beer despite Foggy’s protestations when it was his turn to get a pitcher. Every smile and laugh and hug. And all of the wonderful moments she was desperate to forget when she could barely get out of bed. 

It made it easier to cut him off in the months between the Castle trial and Midland Circle. And she hated herself for that. She told herself she didn’t need to date him, but seeing him…That would have made her feel better. 

Instead, she let him see what it was like to have someone who was only fractionally in his life. To actually realize what he’d given up by pushing her and Foggy to the side. To feel alone. 

She hated herself. 

Karen jumped up, surprising the two lovebirds on the couch. “I think I’m gonna go, you guys.”

Foggy pulled away from his girlfriend. Just seconds before Karen’s interjection, he had leaned his forehead against hers. He loved her and was trying with all of his strength not to scare his blonde bombshell away. 

“Really, Karen? There are only 20 minutes left.” They had been watching a movie that she only half-listened to. She didn’t know why things were blowing up in this particular political thriller, and she didn’t care. 

Marci smiled at Karen knowingly. She was well-aware they had taken their innocent, but loving moment too far for a woman who was falling apart. She nodded— her way of asking if they could fix it. Karen smiled and walked over to Marci and touched her shoulder. 

“I was getting tired anyway.”

She didn’t care if she looked pathetic, she had hit her quota of adorable, and after everything she’d gone through, she didn’t think it was fair to blame herself based on how she looked to her friends. She was doing what she needed to get by. 

She opted to walk the ten blocks to her apartment. It was always nice to go to the better side of town and hang out in a location with actual working heat, but the walk made her feel much further from the point where she might not be living paycheck to paycheck. 

Karen only came to the realization that she wasn’t walking to her own apartment when she looked up and saw that she was standing in front of Matt Murdock’s building. 

Even her subconscious wanted her to feel like shit.

Her eyes watered immediately and she felt a lump rise in her throat. Her tears always felt acidic, never simple tears that went away quickly. They had to hurt. Because she always ugly-cried over Matt Murdock. Except when he was there. She kept her composure then, and she could tell it broke him. 

One more reason to hate herself. 

She didn’t know why she carried his keys around with her. Misty Knight had given her the box of personal items after the explosion. She was in autopilot at that point, forgetting she had the box until she tripped over it a few days later. 

Her hands shook that day as she pulled each component from the container. Broken glasses, a bloody suit, and his wallet. She didn't move the box for days; constantly tripping over it until she stubbed her toe one time too many. She knew that any eventual investigation into his disappearance would make her the number one suspect, but she didn’t care. She left the box was in her bedroom to gather dust, but the keys made their way into her purse. 

She was probably drunk when she did it. She certainly didn’t have any intention of visiting his apartment again. She pulled them out of her purse and unlocked the door to the building, making her way to his floor. Karen’s movements were mechanical as she turned his key in the lock and entered the place that he used to call home. 

It felt stale. 

No one had been inside since he’d disappeared, she was sure of it. 

She dropped her keys on his bench and walked slowly through the hall, choking down the bile that rose in her throat as she breathed in the dusty air.

Why did he have to go and save the world? All she wanted was for him to be alive. 

Too bad it took him dying for her to figure that out.

Karen looked around his living room and the memories came flooding back. 

He brought her home in an attempt to keep her safe, and he spoke honestly about what he’d missed most since losing his sight while she lied in order to protect him. 

She came to check on him when he didn’t show up to work again and found him bloodied and dishonest. Broken by his best friend and the choices he’d made.

She worked on the Castle case, trying to understand the plan of attack for court the next day. That resulted in a conversation about vigilantes and self-defense, though he didn’t know it. She felt him slipping through her fingers this time because she let it slip that she understood the Punisher. She related to him for reasons she thought Matt would never know or understand. 

Maybe he would have understood. But if Foggy and the Defenders were right, she’d never know. 

And that final time she showed up there was an old man with a mirthful positivity who let her in to find Matt with an injured, but beautiful woman in his bed. She hadn’t been there as the woman who wanted to date him. She was there to beg him to show up at the one place he was supposed to be. And he asked her to stay so he could explain, but it was too late. She decided then that she wasn’t going to allow Matt Murdock to talk himself out of a weird situation while she wondered if the “truth” was the actual truth. 

She should have asked him about that once he revealed his secret, but she was too afraid to hear him say what she feared was true: no, he wasn’t going to tell her. Because he hadn’t trusted her enough or cared enough back then. Because the things going on his life were more important and lies were all he knew. 

She walked to his kitchen and flipped the light switch. It didn’t work. Of course it didn’t work. His power bill wasn’t being paid. Someone would probably come for the apartment soon since he wouldn’t be paying his mortgage or rent or whatever situation he had worked out. She realized she might not know much about him. She didn’t think about how trivial it was that she know how he paid his bills. It was easier to be hard on herself than to be logical.

She opened the dark fridge and found two beers. For some reason, they were still cold and she choked back tears. He wouldn’t be drinking these. Or eating the small remainder of a cheddar cheese block that rested on the shelf. She chuckled at how ridiculous the thought sounded. Karen Page was crying over cheese. 

But grief did that to people. You could be holding it together and the tiniest thing could send you to your knees. With Kevin, it had been laundry. 

Laundry had always been a point of contention in their house because he and Karen had shared a bathroom, and that was where he chose to keep his hamper, which always, without fail, stunk up the whole bathroom.

Kevin had been heavily involved in sports and after-school activities. He’d laugh it off when she’d reach her breaking point- causing the only real fights they had in their teen years. Then he’d apologize immediately and clean the entire bathroom to get rid of the stench. 

Once she moved out to go to college, she always came home to find a clean bathroom with an empty hamper in his corner. She knew it was because missed her, and he wanted her to come home as much as possible. He didn’t know that smelly laundry wouldn’t have mattered one bit. He was the one she missed the most. He was the reason she’d put up with her parents. 

But he didn’t clean up before her last trip because it had been unplanned. She came home for something as trivial as a black dress for an end-of-the-year party. With all the money for train and bus fare, she could have just bought a new one, and that was the detail she’d always remember. He told her he would have brought it to her as he took her on a drive that she could only remember bits and pieces of and then only one of them came back. 

So when Karen’s injuries had healed and she could walk into her bathroom, she found that same laundry hamper full to the brim. And she knew there was no one to fight with and the moment it was finally cleaned, it would be the last. That was her first realization that she’d never see her brother again. It was also the reason she waited until she was almost completely out of clothes to do her laundry.

Karen closed the fridge and shook off the sad memories. Thinking about two people she’d loved and lost was the last thing she needed. 

The bright billboard still shone through the living room and she could see the damage the earthquake had done. The bricks were cracked in several places and a few items that normally sat on surfaces were still on the floor. At least she wouldn’t worry that the building had collapsed on him. 

Or better yet, maybe it’d happen in this exact moment and ease her suffering. 

How pathetic would that be? She could hear the headline now: 

It was too long of a headline. More like:

  
  


 

Still too long. This is why she wasn’t a page editor.

She ran her fingers over his couch and sighed. One Punisher-less conversation and she could have gotten one more kiss. Maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe he would have screwed everything up anyway.

She sighed angrily. She had been harsh with him when he deserved it. And he really did deserve it then. But last month… She was so worried that he thought she judged him. She was scared about his well-being, sure. But Daredevil… Daredevil was her hero. Daredevil saved her multiple times. Daredevil saved the city she had come to love.

She just didn’t want him to lose his life and career to go to prison. 

Too bad Daredevil didn’t swoop in and tell her to stop talking. 

Karen blinked away tears and saw a closet she had never noticed before. She felt like she was being pulled to it; opening the door without thinking and finding a black chest that had been hastily torn through and left open. She connected the dots after seeing its contents. The mess was probably from when Foggy grabbed Matt’s suit right before he went to Midland Circle. Foggy told her about his “mistake” in getting it for him like she’d be upset that he egged Matt on. All she could think about was how a less emotional Karen Page would have happily done the same thing.

She felt along a different mask and up the crack from the nose to the top of the forehead. She gasped as she thought about what could have split the hard mask that had been quickly soldered back together. The tears fell from her cheek as she thought about every terrible possibility. A large sword came to mind for reasons she didn’t comprehend, but it was the same sword that Colleen Wing had carried in the precinct, and definitely not the actual reason. 

She pictured her vigilante falling through the air and landing on the pavement. Partially true, but not the real case. Then she pictured a bullet flying through the air and knocking him off the building. Bullseye. 

Did Frank do this? She never thought to ask Matt if the Punisher had shot him as he tried to apprehend the dangerous vigilante. She was too busy trying to forget the fear she experienced when his bullets came for Grotto in the hospital. The moment she thought he was going to kill her for simply driving a man to safety. 

She believed Frank months later; he wasn’t going to kill her. But a certain rage spread through her entire body at the thought of him shooting Matt. 

She calmed down. He wouldn’t do that. Matt was probably a nuisance, but he was still good. And the Punisher didn’t attempt to kill good people.

She sifted through the rest the box and gazed at his most prized possessions mixed in with a few random items that must have been from his childhood, a picture book with worn edges, a few loose playing cards, and some old photos. The thing that really caught her eye, though, was a boxer’s jacket with “Battlin’ Jack Murdock” on the back of it. She didn’t know this story, and for a moment she resented Matt yet again. She only knew bits and pieces about his life and she had always blamed herself for that fact. But you didn’t get information out of people who didn’t want to share it.

She quickly lost her train of thought when she found it hiding underneath the silky robe. 

The makeshift mask and early “black pajama” costume (as she liked to call it) of her ex-boyfriend. Could you even call him that? She thought. The tears started to fall freely as she cried out loud. She pulled the mask to her face and smelled it. She knew it was just her imagination that it smelled like him, but she didn’t care. 

He was gone. 

He was really gone. 

Karen cried, for far too long in her opinion, but when she was done she picked up the mask and went to his bedroom. His watch lay on his nightstand, his bed sheets crumpled like someone had sat down for a minute or even laid down for a quick nap. She moved to the other side, one where she would be sleeping if she were ever in the same bed with him. She pulled his pillow against her, as the mask fell somewhere in between. This time It really smelled like him.

Karen’s mind was flooded with happier moments with Matt, along with some almost-moments that she’d do anything to get back and get right. 

She remembered standing in his living room and tying his tie as he explained that he’d recovered from something he didn’t know the name for. Something so obvious, she should have known immediately, but her worry and her promise that he could tell her what was going on when he was ready had been more important than the actual reason. She’d asked him if he was finally feeling better, and he’d told her yes, followed by words that made her heart race. Words that made her feel like she mattered:

“Now. With you.”

She’d supposedly made him feel better back then and he took her breath away. And now he wasn’t here to do the same for her, and she was left a reminder of just how wrong she had been to put space between them so many months ago. 

Because Karen Page simply couldn’t imagine a world without Matthew Murdock in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might seem like there's a lack of a payoff here, but... That's how the Defenders felt!
> 
> Ok, ok, ok, I'm sorry. The next chapter is going to be short and the one after that will be slightly happier! And maybe we'll see Matt Murdock's handsome, but broken face? who knows?
> 
> (I do)


	4. Chapter 4

“Karen, we have a problem.”

Karen felt a tingling in her ears as she heard Foggy’s words through the receiver. That was a new sensation. She chalked it up to static electricity in her hair and waited for the problem to reveal itself.

He took a breath on the other end of the line. “So I went to Matt’s place.”

She felt her breath hitch. _Was he there? Dear God, was he was alive_?

She didn’t have the patience to wait for him to continue. “What, Foggy! Get to it!”

“...and someone has been there.”

“What!” she said excitedly. “Is he alive?” She regretted the words the moment they left her lips. The silence was deafening

“No, Karen.”

“Of course not. I know that.” She nodded. “I know that.” The last sentence was for her own clarification.

“Karen, a few things were missing from a box in his closet,” he said carefully. He was even more cautious with his what he said next. “I really don’t think it was _him_. But the box was empty and I was the last one to see it.” He seemed like he was questioning his own memory. “I _know_ there were still some items inside…”

“A box? Was it in the closet in the living room?”

“Yes. It was a very… _special_ box.”

It all made sense.

“That was me.”

“Thank God.” Foggy sighed happily. “That was really smart of you.”

“Yeah, I.. I went by there the other day. I figured he’d want his more important items to be safe.”

“ _Yeah_.” Foggy said like he was in on it. “Good idea.”

The morning after her emotional night, Karen walked the floor and found anything that might have mattered to him, or, more importantly, might have implicated him. She figured the contents of the box fell into both of those categories. She also didn’t want some random squatter or police officer to take his father’s boxing robe or the only remnants of her favorite superhero.

The man didn’t have a lot of _things_. Everything she grabbed fit into a duffle bag. Except his pillow. That she carried on her own before she took one last look of his living space and sobbed.

*****

Getting to work was an experience.

Her feet seemed to be heavier with each step she took, and she felt more off than usual. She felt the need to look over her shoulder several times for reasons she didn’t understand, forcing herself up the stairs to her apartment to put on a fresh set of clothes. _12 more hours and you can go to sleep._ That was her incentive to get through the day.

The good thing about winter was that you could be bundled up and nobody would give you grief about it.

She looked up at the Bulletin building and wiped away tears she told herself were from the freezing cold. Then she heard someone mumble something and lifted her beanie off her ears. The handsome gentleman repeated himself.

“You’ve got something on the bottom of your foot, Miss—“ he smiled from ear to ear as he pointed down with the piece of black licorice in his hand.

She looked at her shoe and used her other foot to remove an ace of spades playing card. The man picked it up.

“What the hell?” She said without thinking.

“You’ve never seen one of these before?” the man asked. He handed it to her, which she realized was probably super unsanitary, but she didn't make a big deal of it. At least she was wearing gloves.

“Playing cards?” She asked a little too bluntly. She wasn’t in the mood to be friendly and she didn’t know what he meant. Of course, she’d seen playing cards before.

“No, I mean…” the man chuckled. “You’re not from here, are you?”

That was more annoying than the first question.

“No. I’m not.”

He shook his head incredibly quickly and she told herself to take it down a notch. He seemed like he was incredibly nervous or maybe he thought the situation was funnier than she thought? She couldn't get a read on him.

“I’m sorry, what I meant was, loose playing cards are all over the place. It’s almost as if a truck full of cards crashed one day decades ago and released them into the city.”

“Decades ago?” she asked. Normally she'd have a follow-up question. But she didn't really care about playing cards floating around the city.

“Ever since I was a kid. Maybe even before then. I collect them, actually. I'm just a few shy of a full deck."   


She chuckled. "That's funny."   


"Is it?"

Karen shook her head. "Oh, I just thought you meant..."   


He smiled. "I know what you meant, I was just joking."    


“Oh," she sighed in relief. "Well, you can have this one,” she reached out to hand it to him.

“I can't take your first, Ms. Page.“ He put it back in her hands and closed her fingers around it. "Besides, I already have this one."

"Thanks,” she said awkwardly. She didn’t add an “I guess” like she was thinking. That was progress. "What are you missing?"

He counted on one hand. "Ten of clubs, three of diamonds, six of hearts, king of diamonds, and.... the queen of hearts."   
  
"Wow you really are close," she said nicely. She pulled her jacket closer and tried to pull away from her conversation. " I'll keep an eye out,"   


“I promise, now that you’ve found one, you'll find them all over the place.”

"I bet." she nodded and turned toward her office, prepared to explain that she needed to get to work. 

“Have a nice day,” the man said, smiling once more and turned to leave.

“You too,” she said slowly. Then she walked into the building and started her day.


	5. Chapter 5

Karen Page always ordered food for more than one. 

She loved the idea of having someone to share with so she got multiple options, but when she was single, which was basically always, she ordered enough for 2-3 and feasted for a week.

Today was Thai.

She sat at her desk in her bra and yoga pants typing a thought for an article that she had come up with in the shower. She heard the buzzing as she finished the last word and grabbed the t-shirt she had set aside for herself. 

“Coming!” she yelled, as if the person downstairs had extraordinary hearing - like someone she used to know. 

She ran to the call box. “Sorry that took a second. Come right up.”

She received no response, but she didn’t notice. She was busy pulling her shirt over her bra before they arrived. She opened the door quickly, multitasking by digging into her purse for her wallet. 

“Sorry, I’m a little scattered today.” 

“I'll wait,” Matt Murdock said sweetly. 

The moment she heard his voice, she felt her heart jump out of her chest, dropping her purse to cover her mouth as she gasped loudly. Her wallet fell next. 

He had the most tragic look on his face as tears flooded her eyes and every emotion came over her in the span of a few seconds.

Matt didn’t know if she was going to hit him or hug him, but she did the most unexpected thing on the list of possibilities and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

* * *

The kiss lasted for several minutes. 

He ran his hands up her back as she enveloped herself in him. Her hands went everywhere, and if he had been more inquisitive in that moment, he would have wondered if she was giving him a physical to see if he was really all there. 

Karen’s tears made both of their faces sticky, and she pulled away to sob as the gravity of the situation hit her. 

He took a deep breath and wiped his own face when she finally found the words. “Oh my God I'm so sorry, I… You're alive and—” She choked on her tears. “Oh my God, you're _alive_.”

She started sobbing loudly, walking over to the couch and bawling her eyes out as her call box buzzed again. 

His heart was breaking for her as the buzzer went off again and he stood frozen and worried. After the fourth buzz, he finally spoke into the call box. “Come on up,” he said, his voice breaking. 

He grabbed her purse from the floor and put it on her small table, then grabbed her wallet, which had held the door open when the had been kissing. Matt opened the door the rest of the way as the man arrived.

“22.95.”

The delivery man seemed annoyed that it took them so long to answer. Then he saw the sobbing woman on the couch and became horrified. 

“Is she alright?”

“Um, no…” Matt fumbled over the cash in her wallet and ran his fingers over the options, pulling out a ten and a twenty. 

The man looked behind Matt. “I’m fine.” Karen said, waving him off. He pulled out a change pouch and shook his head. 

“Keep it.” Matt said. He was afraid for what would come next. But he closed the door, put her food on the coffee table, and met her on the couch.

He touched her hand and she started sobbing again and it broke him. He pulled her against his chest and she climbed on top of him, straddling him as she cried against his neck and he petted the back of her head. 

“I’m so sorry,” was all he could say. 

He cried with her for long enough that the food became cold. When she finally stopped, she realized where she was and climbed off of him. 

“Foggy… We need to— He already knows, right?”

Matt shook his head. His movements had not been planned, and he ended up at her house. He didn’t question it. 

She grabbed a tissue box off her end table and wiped her nose. “You came here first?”

“Yeah, I... I hope that was alright.”

She started crying again and took a breath to stop herself as she pulled up his contact information in her phone and pressed send.

She heard the first ring and couldn’t help herself. 

“Where in the hell have you been?”

* * *

Karen used the calmest voice she could muster to ask Foggy over without telling him what was going on. He arrived and mentioned something about the smell of food before seeing his best friend and throwing his arms around him and then breaking down into tears. That set Karen off again and without knowing it, they were back on the couch once more, holding onto Matt like he might drift away if they let go. 

After another unestablished amount of time went by, they ran out of tears and looked to the man who had been missing for over a month. 

Matt started to explain everything, from the Five Fingers of the Hand to Elektra. He told them about the plan to blow up Midland Circle and hearing the detonation timer start. This made both Foggy and Karen angry because the truth was coming out. He told Jessica, Luke, and Danny to go when he knew the building was about to explode. 

Karen covered her face with her hand as Foggy spoke. 

“ _You left us_.”

Matt’s eyes filled with tears again as he nodded and sniffled. 

“I did.”

“You picked her _again_. But this time you picked her over your own life, Matt.”

His voice broke. “I couldn’t let her die again, and I couldn’t let anything happen to Jess and Luke and Danny… There was no time.”

Karen glared at him through tears. 

“Why do you do this, Matt?” Foggy asked. “You can’t save _everyone_!”

“If it had been you or Karen, I would have done the same thing.”

“Karen and I would have _shoved_ _you_ into that elevator instead of trying to _prove something_!”

Karen sobbed at the thought and Matt grabbed her hand and looked at her. 

“I know.”

“ _What is it about her that makes you so stupid, Matt_?” Foggy asked angrily. 

“It’s not simple, Foggy. She’s broken and she’s been hurt her entire life. Stick screwed us both up and… I don’t know.” He sobbed. “I couldn’t let the one person who accepted me for all my flaws die because of me again.”

Karen sobbed again and got up. She went to the bathroom and they could both hear her bawling as she sat on her bathtub mat. 

“You need therapy, Matt.”

“I’m going to talk to Father Lantom. And probably someone else. I’m tired of ruining everyone’s lives.”

“The worst thing you ever did was _choose to die_ , Matt. How in the fu—”

“I know, Foggy.” He grabbed a tissue and wiped his eyes. “I wanted you to know that I was alive. Now I’m going to make it so I don’t put you guys through anything like this again.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

Matt took a careful breath and gulped. “I’m going to leave you alone.”

He heard another sob in the bathroom as Karen threw the door open and walked over to them. Matt stood up, feeling the the fury emanating off of her and preparing for the worst.

“Don’t you _dare_ , Matt.”

He sat back down quickly. 

Foggy was silent. He knew Matt was trying to give them an out, but it was very poorly timed. He was always straddling the line between saying all the right things and saying all the completely stupid, shitty things.

“You don't get to walk away, Murdock.” He reached a hand out to her but she pushed it down. “ _You really think that_ —“ she sobbed. “ _You’re just going to leave? Again_?!? After everything we went through? After more than a month of thinking you were _dead_!”

He was frozen, knowing she wasn’t done and afraid of interrupting. She was clenching her fists so hard she broke skin with her fingernails. He stood up and grabbed her fists and she pulled away, but he didn’t let go. He ran his fingers over the top of her hand and opened her fists. He held her bleeding palms as her eyes filled with tears again.

“I don’t _want_ to leave you, Karen. That’s the last thing I’d ever want.” He sniffled and Foggy stared at the both of them. It was the first time he felt like he was an intruder. 

“Matt, I…” her lip quivered as the tears started to flow freely. He let go of her arms and hugged her. Her words hit against his neck as she squeezed him a little tighter than she should. “I wish you had faith in me, Matt.”

_That_ hurt.

He petted her hair and pursed his lips. How could one person fail such a special woman so terribly? Why in the hell did she cling to him when he ruined her life?

“Why do you care about me so much?” He shook his head. He sounded ashamed, his voice barely above a whisper. “What did I ever do to deserve that?”

Karen pulled away from him and saw the pain in his face. She shook her head and looked to Foggy. She didn’t have an answer for him, and Foggy couldn’t even speak, let alone tell him a list of reasons why they needed him. He didn’t realize what that last few months had done to his best friend, but the level of anger he’d had back then seemed trivial. He wished he’d been there for him. 

Matt collapsed on the couch and put his hand to his forehead as his friends looked on. Karen broke the silence. 

“You decide what you want, Matt, but if you stay, know one thing. I’m done having you make my decisions for me. And Foggy might be different. But I really hope you don’t pick the easy way out again.”

He nodded sadly, and she sighed as he hunched over, sobbing into his hands. Foggy’s face was covered in a blanket of fear and heartbreak. 

* * *

Not much was said after Karen’s well-deserved tangent. Foggy left his two friends sitting on the couch looking ahead but not saying anything. If there were two people in the world who seemed like they wanted space more, it wasn’t them. They sat quietly, waiting for the other to break the silence. 

She was scared to death that he’d get up and leave. 

He was scared to death she’d tell him to go. 

Of course it was Karen who decided to rip off the bandaid 

“Matt,” she barely got his name out. He turned toward her and his lips pursed sadly. “I’m trying like hell to keep it together.” She said honestly while he nodded in understanding. “Have you even been home?”

“No, I— I don’t know what’s waiting for me there. I have autopay set up for my apartment,, but… I assume the water and power are off. I don’t know if anyone noticed that I was gone.”

She shook her head and clenched her hands. _She noticed._

He backpedaled quickly. “What I mean is… I didn’t care about going back, I just needed to see—” He didn’t want to make things worse. 

“Your utilities are off, but no one has cleared your stuff out.” She said calmly.

“You’ve been… You were...”

“I was there, yes.”

“Oh.”

“Misty gave me your keys and your things, I—” She had to remember where she put everything. Once she moved the box out of her walkway, she couldn’t even look at the contents. She couldn’t do anything for days. 

“Thank you.” 

She nodded. “Come with me.”

He didn’t ask questions, just followed her to her room. He sat on her bed as she pulled boxes out from underneath and searched for his things. 

“It’s not a big deal, Karen. I can get inside.” 

“You aren’t going to stay there tonight.”

He tilted his head and looked questioningly. 

She shoved the boxes under her bed and checked her nightstand drawer. Still nothing. 

Then she went to her dresser and found his wallet and broken glasses underneath her camisoles. She handed them to him as he waited calmly for her to finish.

She remembered where his keys were. “Your keys are in my purse.” She shook her head in annoyance. Remembering details wasn’t one of her strong suits these days. “You don’t have power or water there and it’s freezing outside. You can stay here tonight.”

“Karen, I can get a hotel. I know you probably don’t—”

“Matt, please don’t make me ask again. If don’t _want_ to stay here, that’s different, but… 

“I’d love to stay.”

“Ok. Do you need a shower?”

“How could you tell?” He hadn’t had longer than a five-minute shower for a month. And the water pressure at the convent was terrible. The nuns never complained though, so he kept his mouth shut. 

Matt finished his shower, putting his boxers back on as well as the t-shirt she’d left him on the bathroom counter. He exited and found her clinging to a pillow on her bed, her face was still moist from the tears. He sniffled as he listened to her breaths, pulling a blanket over her before she grabbed his hand. 

“Please don’t leave.”

“I’m not, Karen. I promised.”

“No. Stay…” she sniffled. “With me.”

He climbed under the covers, and she snuggled up against him. She smelled him and started crying again.

“I’m so sorry, Karen.”

“Don’t ever do this to me again, Matt. I couldn’t take it.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I had my way, I'd hold onto this and perfect it until the end of time. I've been giving myself a hard time about this and I think it's best to just release it and come back later.


	6. Stupid Murdock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt's stint at a nunnery helps him remember everything he did before Midland Circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the infamously titled "Stupid Murdock" chapter and my version of the mask reveal conversation at the end of DDS2. I hope everything makes sense!

Foggy once told Matt that things couldn't go back to how they were.

This was after their first major fight, the one in which he discovered his best friend was Daredevil.

Matt knew there was truth to that, but he still held on tight to the notion that they could move forward. And he felt like he was starting to repair the damage done to their friendship. Then everything went to hell.

He didn't want to be the reason for the dissolution of Nelson & Murdock. He was the reason everything blew up in their faces, and it was hard to accept. Matt didn't like to let people down, but once he became Daredevil that happened more and more.

He had told himself that it was for the best, that he needed to make a choice and when he did, it couldn’t be misinterpreted. Even if it wasn't what he had intended, the damage had been done.

He hoped he could salvage something, anything, with his friends once the crushing weight of work had been lifted. He didn't know how, but he wanted to work his way back to that point. That's why he decided to reveal everything to the other person he had hurt, and he was pretty certain he’d hurt her more than Foggy.

She had held his mask in her hand with barely an expression on her face. She ran her fingers over its smooth surface, before finally running her hand over her own face where he had touched her the night he saved her. He explained everything as they sat against the wall behind her desk; the place she had moved as she ran through every moment they'd had together. She barely responded as he spoke, telling the story from the beginning. The origins of Daredevil, the first night she'd spent at his apartment and the subsequent scene afterward, in which he beat her attacker to a pulp as she tried to get a flash drive from her old apartment.

He went through the next year: every interaction with Fisk and his partners, the Punisher, and finally Elektra. He expected her to lash out at some point, yell or ask him what the hell he was thinking. She surprised him by simply saying,

_"Okay, Matt."_

_"Okay?"_

* * *

_"Okay."_

That was the word he heard over and over again as he awoke from nearly dying.

The voice was beautiful. Her face was a blur. Everything about her was a blur.

He couldn’t see.

“Go get Maggie.”

This voice was clearer. It came from someone who was in the same room as him. He moved his arms to see what was wrong with his sight, but it hurt too much. His brain felt like it was on fire. He heard people yelling outside and a car honking. He heard more than just the screeching horn. He heard a person’s laces as they moved, tied to a shoe that was pressing on the brake. He heard the brakes squeak as the car stopped short. He heard the fan belt running and the slosh of oil. He heard the engine running.

_How in the hell?_

“Matthew?” A soft hand touched his and as much as it hurt, it made him feel at peace.

* * *

Matt spent weeks recuperating.

He knew he was blind, and he knew there was something special about him. But his memories weren’t there. At least not all of them.

But they started to piece themselves back together. And with each new memory of his childhood came a new memory of the months before. He didn’t know why it worked that way, but he hated it. Because he needed to fill in the blanks for why he sabotaged his own life and he just didn’t have all of the facts yet.

He had to have a reason for doing what he did.

He’d dream of the same beautiful voice, but it wasn’t always kind. Disappointed seemed to be the right word.

_"I'm not the one to tell you how to live your life. You made a choice, an admirable one if I'm being honest, and it led to your professional and personal downfall. But you can pick up those pieces eventually."_

What choice?

He asked Maggie, but she never had the answers. She changed his bandages and combed his hair for him. She spoke in bible verses and positive affirmations, but something told him she knew more. She told him she wished he hadn’t been hurt and he could tell that she was in pain as she said it. Her heartbeat told him that. The constant, but quiet tears also told him that she cared about him more than the other nuns for reasons he didn’t understand.

She helped him to remember his life. She held him as he remembered the accident that took his sight. She wiped away his tears as the memory of his father’s death came back to him. It felt too real. He had experienced so much pain.

Sister Maggie was always there to ask him the right questions to get him to remember. And she didn’t usually like the answers. His treatment at the orphanage and all the people who had acted like he was some sort of damaged human for being blind and alone. When the depression started to come over him, she’d ask him about happy memories with his father.

She never asked him about his mother though. Like she somehow knew the answer to the greatest question he’d had his entire life. He tested the waters one day, inserting her into a conversation about Jack Murdock.

“I can’t remember my mother.”

She gulped as he said this. “Maybe you’ll remember her eventually.”

“No. I get the feeling I never will. I can’t remember her at all.”

She nodded her head and made an excuse to get him some water. That’s when he knew he was right. His time at the nunnery had been the most time he’d ever spent with his mother. She wasn’t just Sister Maggie. She was Margaret Murdock.

* * *

Matt was glad that the majority of the details about his adult life came back to him when Maggie wasn’t around. He didn’t know how to explain half of what he’d done when it all seemed so morally grey. He started thinking about things that might lead him to answers on purpose. It almost always worked when he thought of Foggy.

How he’d enjoyed helping people and the fact that there was a dark side to what he’d been doing. How he enjoyed fighting and his own form of justice

_"You need to fix things with Foggy. Maybe now that Nelson & Murdock is dissolved, maybe he'll be able to go back to being your friend."_

How could he know who Foggy was and still have a problem recognizing _her_ voice? It hurt him every time he heard it, and he knew that had to mean something.

 _"I don't know if I can,"_ he had told her.

_"You do know. And you are going to take my advice after you made my life a living hell for months. He loves you and you love him. And this is your fault."_

He believed she was right. He knew he’d screwed up. He remembered college and he remembered Elektra. Why did he choose Elektra over this woman? The only thing he remembered about Elektra was the pain he felt after she left him alone in the home of the man who had ordered his father’s murder so many years ago.

And then he remembered the pain after she _really_ left him; after sacrificing herself to save him. He remembered and cried as he lay in his bed and she died in his arms again. It felt so real. And then Midland Circle came back to him. Jessica and Luke and Danny. Stick.

It was like he was there again. The Hand was going to take everything that mattered to them. They were going to hurt Foggy and Karen.

_Karen._

He leaned back against his pillow and closed his eyes. How could he forget her?

It was only 7:00 in the evening, but Maggie didn’t come back that night, and he was somewhat glad. He curled on his bed and said Karen’s name aloud before falling asleep. Remembering was mentally exhausting.

Instead, he dreamed of the night he had been remembering in pieces. The night he told her his secret.

He had been so shocked that she was so calm about his confession.

Karen Page had always been Daredevil’s greatest advocate; convinced that he was good when the rest of the city thought otherwise. She always fought for what she had believed in, and she was never judgmental about his decisions. Worried, yes, but judgmental? Never **.**

She fought for the thing she cared about the most: her friendships. That was the first thing she’d mentioned after he told her everything.

_"You need to fix things with Foggy. Maybe now that Nelson & Murdock is dissolved, maybe he'll be able to go back to being your friend."_

_"I don't know if I can,” he had told her_.

_"You do know. And you are going to take my advice after you made my life a living hell for months. He loves you and you love him. And this is your fault."_

_He had sighed as he listened to her fight for their friendship yet again. When he had ruined her life._

_He nodded as she spoke the truth. "I will. I promise."_

_"Good."_

_He opened his mouth to ask the question he'd been dying to know the answer to. But he couldn't say it. And she knew._

_"Trust is really important to me, Matt."_

_He nodded sadly._

" _And knowing the truth is good. You know I've had a soft spot for Daredevil since the beginning. I will never be able to repay you for saving my life as many times as you did. Daredevil was… you were my hero, Matt." She swallowed as she held back tears. “You still are.”_

_That hurt more than anything she’d ever said to him._

_"I don't deserve anything, Karen."_

_"You have been a source of hope for me in a time when I didn't know if I'd live or die. But Matt, the Castle case,_ and _Stick and Elektra… You made a choice to shove me to the side. I know you didn't want things to end the way they did, but Foggy and I needed you. And all you had to do was offer was an explanation and you know I would have been on your side."_

_"I'm sorry, Karen."_

_"I understand your reasons, I do. But this has been really painful, Matt. You and Foggy have been my family. I haven't felt this alone since…" She drifted off to memories he didn’t know about. Memories he would have asked about if he hadn’t been so wrapped up in his own problems. "It doesn't matter. I want to try to be friends_ again _but now isn't the time. I can't brace myself for another disappointment right now."_

_"I understand. And Karen, I'll be honest with you from now on. I made the biggest mistake of…" He sighed. "I'll never do that to you again."_

_"I hope so, Matt."_

He was right. He didn’t deserve anything.

* * *

Matt sat on the small courtyard within the nunnery and twisted a set of rosary beads his mother had given him between his fingers, cringing through the pain from his shoulder. Here, he allowed himself to be honest about what he was going through.

He was leaving the next day.

Maggie still didn’t mention anything about her connection to him, and he didn’t ask her. Whatever had led her to leave him and his father was enough to torture her, and he could hear it in her voice and feel it with her heartbeat.

They’d have to talk about it when she was ready. And for now, that was ok. Because he had a lot of things to fix in his life, and honestly, the idea of having that conversation was too much for him.

His friends probably thought he was dead. And he had chosen that path in a split-second and it couldn’t be taken back.

He held Elektra because he couldn’t let her go. She couldn’t die yet again because of him.

He took the easy way out, and his survival was like this great cosmic joke.

But God knew it was the wrong path and he gave him a big slap upside the head and said: “you’re not done yet.”

“You’re not done yet, and better yet, here’s your mother who abandoned you. Figure your shit out.”

He chuckled at the irony.

He had given his friends space, only to bring them right back into the world he never wanted them to be a part of. He had walked away from Daredevil and look at where it got him. Jumping back in to save the world with a bunch of misfits just like him. Dying for the woman who died for him.

And surviving.

Tomorrow he’d have to atone for sins against the people he loved.

It scared the shit out of him.


	7. Chapter 7

Matt woke up sore. 

He took in his surroundings. It had been a long time since he’d slept in a place that felt like home. Today was different though. He was happier than he’d been in nearly a year and finally had a good night’s rest without the nightmares.

The reason was in his arms. They were sharing the same pillow, which felt familiar. _Was it his pillow?_ It didn’t matter now. His arm was wrapped around her shoulder and her face was nestled against his neck. His lips were dangerously close to her forehead and he wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt. 

Karen’s eyelashes moved against his thumb with every breath she took as she slept, but it wasn’t until he forced himself to stop listening to her murmurs that he was able to locate the source of his pain. She was clutching him like she’d never let him go and he was positive he’d have bruises on his ribs, but he didn’t care. It would be a reminder that there was a moment in time where she held onto him as tightly as she could. 

Matt wondered what time it was before realizing it didn’t actually matter. Dead men didn’t have prior engagements - though the world didn’t really _know_ he was gone. The Aaron James case he’d tried in court before Midland Circle had been the last one on the books. He’d spent months proving that Berkowitz had been negligent, and had intended to take a week or so off before searching for new clients. 

Karen moved her face against his chest and Matt forgot what he was trying to think about. He couldn’t remember what he was wearing. _Was it boxers_? He took a shower and she asked him to stay, and…

He moved his foot, finding her leg wrapped around his bare thigh. How did she go from yelling at him to asking him to sleep with her? He didn’t even want to think about it. In sleep, she wanted him there. And she smelled like herself and he loved it. He smelled her head and smiled. He had never been able to do that before even though he’d always wanted to. It would have being incredibly obvious then, not to mention, he’d never held her for this long before. 

Karen’s eyes blinked open and she released her grip, shaking her right hand out. She breathed against his skin and smiled as she placed her hand back on his ribs and hugged him to her. Matt tried not to move as she turned her face into the palm that rested on her cheek and kissed it.

And just like that, it was like a switch flipped. 

Her chest heaved and she started crying soundlessly against him. 

Karen pulled her face away from his neck and the tears hit the pillow as she tried to figure out if he was awake. She felt herself start to lose control and hopped out of bed carefully. She closed the door behind her as Matt rolled over into her spot and buried his face in his pillow as she quietly bawled in the other room. 

* * *

Foggy Nelson didn’t want to go to work the day after he found his best friend was still alive. 

He wanted to go over to Matt’s and make sure he wasn’t imagining things. He looked at his call list and saw the one from Karen at 10:00 the night before. She _did_ call him which meant that he _did_ go over to her apartment. Matt was _alive_. He said it over and over to himself.

He called her anyway. 

He knew Karen was probably in a precarious state regarding their mutual friend, but he couldn’t help it. He needed confirmation.

“Hey,” he said in a tone that was a little too happy. He overcompensated and sounded too serious. “I was just calling to—“

“See if it really happened?” She cleared her throat. She has been crying recently. He knew because her “pause from crying” voice had become all too familiar in the last few weeks. 

“He is,” she sniffled, but he couldn’t ignore the hint of happiness in her voice. “He’s really back, Foggy,”

He sighed in relief. He hated that she was upset, but he felt much better. “Good. This last month has been a nightmare.”

“I love you, Foggy.”

He could tell that she was despondent, and if any other event had happened, he would have been worried she was going to do something drastic. But this was about everything she’d been through and everything she was about to go through. He had faith that she’d be ok. 

“I love you too, Karen.”

They hung up and he felt better. She was in pain, but it was less than the day before, and most of it would go away with time.

He allowed his eyes to water at work for the first time in a month.

_Matt is alive._

He looked at his shaking hands and went to his desk; pulling out a bottle of whiskey and pouring a somewhat generous amount into his coffee. He silently hoped that this new coping mechanism would resolve itself now that the worst hadn’t actually happened. Matt Murdock’s death affected him more than he liked to show the people around him, but it was easier to control since most people didn’t even know that his best friend had “died.”

Foggy glanced at his calendar and groaned. He had completely forgotten that his first meeting of the day was with Jessica Jones. The firm needed her to look into something and this was the first time she said yes in months. Jeri Hogarth had been insistent that they use the private eye if they could get her— even though Foggy had a feeling there was a reason he was the one meeting with her instead of Jeri herself. You didn’t get far when you asked questions, though. 

Foggy knew that Jeri had a soft spot in her heart for the gifted private detective. He had been excited to really meet her a few days before, despite their circumstances. He had gotten a few glances of her during the Midland Circle debacle, but he mostly only knew her by reputation. Now he was dreading it. 

Because he knew something big. And the idea of keeping it from a perceptive and dangerous woman whose lot in life was to get to the bottom of things was not at the top of his to-do list. 

Seeing her was so much worse. 

Somehow Jessica Jones was even less put together than Matt on his worst day.

She saw him and turned pale. Her hair was disheveled, and she had fresh bruises on her face; something he was now assuming was common with vigilantes. But her jeans looked like they hadn’t been washed in a month. And her cheeks were flush red like she’d spent the last ten minutes vomiting. 

And the worse part? She was being nice. 

“Hi, Mr. Nelson.” 

_Mr. Nelson._ He couldn’t hide the fact that he was taken aback.

“It’s Foggy. Please call me Foggy,” he said with an encouraging smile. 

She wrinkled her nose. “Like, on purpose?” 

There it was: a glimmer of hope. 

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m such an asshole.”

She collapsed into the chair in front of his desk and he could really see just how torn up she was. She looked like she was being ripped from the inside out

It made him feel 500 times worse.

“I really don’t want to do this, um... Foggy.” She said honestly. “I just got so sick of Jeri’s calls and I haven’t gotten out much lately, so...” 

She didn’t say the thing they were both thinking. 

Jeri obviously hadn’t mentioned that the lawyer she’d be working with was Foggy Nelson. She didn’t know why her former friend was doing ten times worse than normal because they didn’t really talk much after everything with Kilgrave. 

The phone calls were new. It was true Hogarth fashion for her to ignore the fact that Jessica hated her and dial her number like usual. Their relationship was always love-hate, just not normally this weighted toward the “hate.”

Jessica thought about the fact that she really should change her number. That would solve a lot of problems, actually. 

“Can we just get to the reason Jeri is dead-set on using me for my services?”

Foggy nodded sadly. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I—“

“Please don’t say _you’re_ sorry.” Jessica said strongly. He swore he saw tears in the corners of her eyes and looked away quickly. The woman had been through enough and he didn’t need to witness it when she clearly didn’t want him to.

But in true Foggy form he broke anyway. 

“It’ll get better, Jessica.”

She looked up in surprise and saw his kind smile. She took short breath, like she wasn’t sure if she should say what she was thinking. It didn’t matter; she wasn’t great at thinking on her feet these days and he didn’t have it in her to try.

“Really? Because I don’t think I’ll ever get over this. 

* * *

Matt walked into his apartment and felt a wave of calm rush over him. 

He was home. 

It was a welcome relief after the morning he’d had. 

Karen acted like everything was alright, giving him a coffee and asking him what he was about to do as she got ready for work. She tried pretending that everything was normal, but he knew she was afraid to talk to him and afraid to let him feel what she was feeling. 

He’d offered to get her breakfast while she finished up, but she lied about an early meeting and gave him the objects she knew he couldn’t live without: his cell phone, his wallet, and his keys. He was reluctant to leave, but she helped him out the door and told him to call her if he needed anything. He heard her break down again as soon as he left the building. He didn’t know that he could hate himself this much, and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

So he ran errands that would help him feel like he had a life again. Baby steps. 

He went to the post office to retrieve a large pile of mail that had been returned once his mailbox was too full, finding a check from his latest court win and depositing it at the bank. The teller told him that both of his accounts still had money in them before the check and that his mortgage had come out automatically like it did every month. His last step was getting his phone reactivated.

He sent texts to let the two people he loved know they had a way to contact him, ignoring the urge to tell them that unlike all the times before, he actually answered. They didn’t need reminding of how things had been before. 

When he finally made it made it back to his apartment, he moved around it like it wasn’t his, checking to see if anything had changed while he had been gone. It smelled foreign to him; like anise and dust and misery. 

He assumed it was the smell of the building without traces of him. He didn’t like it. He threw the pile of mail on the coffee table and turned on a lamp, but there was no hum of electricity. It wasn’t a surprise; his utilities did not come out automatically like his mortgage. 

Then he moved to his bedroom and found that he was right, his pillow was missing, and someone had obviously slept on his bed. It smelled like Karen had slept there recently. He smiled sadly as he went into his living room. 

Matt dreaded the fact that he’d have to call utility companies to take care of his unpaid bills. He pulled from the top of the pile and ran his fingers over envelope ink until he found his power bill sighing as he sat down.

_Welcome back to the land of the living_.

* * *

It had been at least a month since Karen had been proud of anything she turned in at _the Bulletin._ She took a week off right after Midland Circle, and came back weighing less and always looking like she hadn’t slept enough. 

Ellison took note of his former energetic and intrepid reporter’s change in mood. He figured she’d burned out, but she never gavehim any real information about what she was going through. So he gave her less-involved articles to feel the situation out. He knew it was bad when she didn’t respond negatively and kept her head down. This week was the same thing. Some fact-checking and a few pull quotes to back up other stories. She did the work she was assigned and counted down the hours until 5:00. She never used to do that before. 

Karen went home and sat in a dark apartment and saw the pillow she’d stolen from Matt’s apartment, thinking, God, she didn’t want to tell him why it was in her apartment and not his. She’d have to find a way to sneak it inside later. She put on her workout clothes and grabbed a small bag to hold her keys and wallet and jogged to a place that had become familiar over the last couple of weeks. 

Colleen Wing was quick to answer her door. 

“Hey,” Karen said in a much quieter voice than usual. 

“Hi, Karen!” Colleen said happily before noticing the sadness in her eyes. “You alright?” 

“Yeah, just a rough day at work. Any chance I could get out some aggression?”

“Of course.”

Colleen had grown used to her new angsty friends coming by her dojo as an outlet for their stress. Karen was there most nights, taking a couple of classes and working out when no one was around. The former instructor had installed a punching bag for this specific purpose. A little hand-to-hand practice made her feel good too. She always had some fight left in her. 

Karen placed her bag on the floor in the back corner and wrapped her hands as Colleen turned the rest of the lights on. 

She walked over to her friend and smiled sadly. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Colleen asked as they got into the first position. Karen swung at her friend as Colleen blocked her first hit. 

“Not really.” It was a lie. _You need to talk about it. You just can’t,_ she thought.

Colleen came after her and Karen made a poor block, taking the brunt of the hit in her side. It made her angry, but not at Colleen. 

_There is no reason to be upset anymore. Matt is alive. You thought he was dead and he is alive._

She got her footing and re-positioned. Colleen waited for her attack. 

_But he chose to die for Elektra. He chose to leave you and Foggy._

She hit into Colleen’s fists over and over again. 

_And Jessica and Luke and Danny. He left all of you._

“Maybe this is a job for the punching bag.” Colleen said out of breath. They walked over to it and Colleen held the bag. 

_He left all of you for one person. He gave up._

She slammed the bag hard and Colleen had to regain her footing. 

_And the first thing you did when you saw him was kiss him. Really?!? Really. _

_That’s what you did._

_You did that._

She kicked the bag and caught her breath. She didn’t even look at Colleen, but she knew Colleen was watching her carefully. 

_He kissed you back._

She used all of her force to punch as hard as she could before taking a breath. 

_It was an impulse._

She clenched her hands and loosened up before giving swift punches. 

_He was going to leave again so that you and Foggy wouldn’t have to be around him anymore._

She punched again and felt the sweat drip onto her shoulder. 

_Except that it wasn’t for you or Foggy. It was for him. It’s always about what is easier for him._

She went back to bigger hits between each thought.

_Running away to fight the Hand instead of showing up to court? Easier for him_

_Running away with Elektra after his life went up in flames? Easier for him_

_Keeping his secret that he was Daredevil? Partially for your own safety, but inevitably? Easier for him._

_Lying to you about wanting to be Daredevil and then jumping back in “for your safety”? Easier for him._

_Fighting Elektra and then giving up on the idea of convincing her to live and choosing to_ die ___for her?_

“Karen?”

_He didn’t trust you._

_“Karen?”_

_He never trusted you. _

She threw a fist and missed, overcorrecting and falling forward to the floor. She didn’t notice the tears falling from her eyes, but Colleen did. Karen raised her wrapped hands and covered her face as she sobbed and Colleen met her on the mat. 

“What’s wrong, Karen? Please! You can tell me.”

“He— everything he _did_ …” She sobbed. 

Colleen’s arms were wrapped around her as she cried into her shoulder. She knew exactly who Karen was talking about. ”

“He did it for _her_. He left me and Foggy and he… He just _gave up_!”

“How did you know that—” She stopped herself and Karen looked up. 

“You knew he stayed? You knew he basically chose to die?”

“Danny told me… He told him to protect the city… _How did you_ —”

Karen lost it. “Why would he _do_ that? Why in the hell would he _choose_ to die?”

_‘Protect the city.’ Not ‘tell Karen and Foggy I’m sorry.’_

She felt selfish just for thinking like that.

Colleen sighed. “I never get much out of him because it’s been a process, but... From what Danny told me, the Hand killed Elektra once… Something about her trying to save Matt from the Hand and she died.”

“I know.”

Colleen looked surprised but continued anyway.

“And when he found her again, he lied to everyone because he thought they’d kill her.”

Karen nodded.

“And that asshole, Stick planned to kill her. And then he decided to kill Danny...” Colleen glared at nothing in particular because she had led that lunatic to her boyfriend and he lied to her, and…

Everyone seemed to have some things to work through.

“So why would he stay underground when he knew the bomb was going to go off?” 

“They were fighting down below and Elektra wouldn’t let up. Jess, Luke, and Danny were about to get on the elevator, but there was no way she’d…”

Karen’s nonjudgmental questioning had become serious. She spoke through gritted teeth.

“ _How do they know_?” 

“She was fighting Matt, even after remembering who he was. But she had something dark inside her, Karen. She had just killed the only important influences in her life— apart from Matt... Danny spoke with her and she basically admitted that she killed Alexandra for Matt. I don’t know if it’s true, but, Alexandra ordered her to kill him, and that was the last straw for Elektra... I don’t know.”

Karen smiled respectfully at the woman’s ability to take care of business when it came to those who would harm Matt. But then she remembered the crux of the issue.

“So she wouldn’t listen to someone who ordered her to kill him, but… She was fine with him _dying_ for her? That makes _no_ _sense_!”

“I don’t know, Karen,” Colleen said honestly. “Something about the two of them was just so flawed. From what I learned about Stick, he trained them to be…and _especially_ her.. it just feels really similar to the way…”

Karen tilted her head at her new friend’s glassy eyes. She knew there was something about Colleen’s background that made her drift off when they were together. She seemed to be full of guilt or something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

Now wasn’t the time 

“I can only speculate, but Danny thinks that Matt was trying to get her to stop and she just couldn’t, And he would rather make sure the others had a fighting chance to get away, and…” she took a breath and said the part that hurt the most. “He couldn’t leave her to die again.”

“ _So he gave up_.”

“I don’t know. This is all bits and pieces I’ve gotten from Danny, or Jessica… neither of them had realized the bomb had been activated, otherwise they wouldn’t have left him. Both of them are still so upset over all of this.” She rubbed Karen’s shoulders. “There was no time for anyone to think, Karen. Matt wasn’t like, ‘who will I never see again?’ he made sure everyone got on the elevator when he knew the bomb was activated and my hope is, that he was actually going to go back up after them, but then the elevator was destroyed.”

Karen’s lip quivered as she imagined everyone’s last moments. She felt a tear fall from Colleen’s eye onto her forehead tilted her head in confusion.

That’s all I know… Except—”

“Except what?” Karen moved away from Colleen who hung her head as she gathered the strength to say it. 

“Except that it’s my fault the bomb was started too early. It’s my fault _it was even there._ ”

Karen looked at her as she continued. “It was an accident, but… We knew once it was activated there was no turning back. I was fighting Bakuto and it just… It was an accident.” 

Colleen was distraught. She had been holding in the truth ever since their first meetup even though she knew it was wrong to lie. She worried it would be enough for Karen to refuse to talk to her. She didn’t expect a friendship when she first met her, but it was something she’d grown to depend on.

“I know enough about the Hand to know they weren’t going to stop, Colleen. You can’t blame yourself. Blame _him.”_

Colleen assumed she wasn’t talking about Bakuto, but she knew there was no point in arguing. 

“I’m sorry Karen. I’m sorry if he really wanted to—” she stopped herself. What was the point of questioning what Matt Murdock did or did not do on purpose? 

“He never loved me, Colleen.” Her lips quivered as she came to the realization. “I never m-m-attered.” 

Colleen held her face in her hands as a tear fell from her eye. “ _Of course you did,_ Karen. Jessica said he rushed to you and Foggy the moment he knew the Hand was coming for you. I know he’s gone, and you’ll never get to ask him yourself, but… he wouldn’t have done this to you on purpose, Karen. You are—“

She took a breath. “You know what, Colleen? It’s fine. This mess is exactly what I deserve after everything I— The choices I’ve made…”

“Listen to me, Karen. You aren’t the only one who feels the need to be hard on yourself. Some of us are just as broken and we don’t talk about it because it’s just a reminder of every glaring mistake we’ve ever made. You aren’t alone in that. But I’m sure Matt didn’t want you to go through this. I know you mattered to him. I only saw the two of you interact for a moment from across the room, but… I could feel that.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen shows up drunk on Matt's doorstep. Matt hasn't been doing great either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been crying about this chapter for a year. Sorry in advance.

Karen tripped as she pressed the call button to his apartment. She hiccuped as Matt told her to come up, reaching for the unlocked door angrily.

_Smug bastard. No fake ‘who is it?’ just, ‘I have extrasensory senses and I know it’s you, Karen.’_

She found him holding his door open and looking about as nervous as the moment he waited for her response after he revealed his vigilante identity. She was clearly drunk, but he still didn’t expect her to reach out and touch him. 

“Just making sure you’re really alive.” She said with a glare, turning around until she felt his hand around hers. She looked down at it and back at the pained man before her.

“ _What_ , Matt?”

“You’re drunk, Karen.” His words were more gentle than judgmental, and it was infuriating. 

“I _am_ drunk, _Matt_.” She said his name like it was a dirty word and was so confident in her delivery that she didn't see any need to further explain her disdain. 

His next words were almost timid, but she didn’t notice how he was more filled with worry than anything. “Where’s your purse?”

Karen ran her arm over her right shoulder and shook her head and raised a finger. “I left it at Colleen’s. Good thing I _drank_ at Josie’s. She put it on your tab. Guess she didn’t know you were dead and then not dead and then...” she counted in two fingers and nodded.

“That’s good,” Matt didn't miss the fact that she was hanging out with Colleen Wing. He really wanted to know how that came to be and to learn about their dynamic, but it was not the time. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute?” He gestured to the end of the hallway, but she didn’t bite. 

He was too nice, and it pissed her off even more. 

“ _I don’t want to be around you, Matt.”_

He winced at her bluntness and closed his eyes for a moment before speaking. Any direction he decided to go could have dire consequences, and his primary objective was to get her to stay or get her home safely. He’d follow her from a distance if that was what it took. He chose the honest route. 

“I wouldn’t want to be around me either.”

She sighed. She was starting to feel like an asshole. She heard her mother’s voice telling her father, “ _alcohol is a depressant, Paxton,_ ” and shook the words away to focus as much on the man before her as her brain would allow. “Why do you make everything so difficult, Matt? You don’t even fight back.”

He nodded sadly. “What could I possibly say in my defense, Karen?”

She scoffed. “Oh I don't know… how about, ‘I've just been through hell and now you're treating me like garbage, _Karen_.’ Or, ‘if you really missed me _so_ much, why do you only have anger in your heart, _Karen?’_ Or, _my_ favorite, ‘if you _don't_ have feelings for me anymore, why are you losing your shit, _Karen?’”_

Karen unzipped her sweatshirt and dropped it on the bench, causing a large clunking noise as her barely-protected phone hit the hard surface. Then she left him for the living room, seeing the bottle of whiskey that was already on his coffee table and pouring more into the empty glass beside it. 

Matt met her on the couch, setting her phone down next to the half-empty bottle. “I really hope that's not how I sound when I say your name...”

She leaned back into the couch and spoke into her glass. “Always with the jokes, Matt Murdock. Because you don't already have the charm and intelligence and good looks.” 

Matt wondered if she realized she had gone from hating him to complimenting him like it was an insult. It was preferable, sure, but it proved she was more gone than he’d realized. “Karen, do you think it might be a good idea to switch to coffee?” He looked slightly worried about how she might take it, but she focused less on the fact that he was trying to take care of her as she hurled insults at him and more on logistics.

“Do you even _have_ coffee?” He thought about it for a moment and hunched his shoulders guiltily as her tone shifted back to angry.

He thought about it for a moment and realized she was right. “I guess I don’t.”

“Exactly. So maybe I’m fine with this.” She swirled the whiskey around in the glass. 

“You know, you're not easy to get over, Murdock,” she said before she took a swig. “We kissed a few times and went on what, _one date_? What the hell is wrong with me? No wonder you ran away—” 

“I didn't run away, Karen, I—”

“I _was_ wrong about you, though. I always thought you were a bad liar, but that kiss… each and every time you kissed me...I really thought you meant it.” She sighed. “Somehow, _somehow_ I thought that you could want _me_ , Murdock. Stupid little small-town secretary Karen Page. What was I thinking? You're a fu-” she hiccuped “-cking Adonis **,** ” she hiccuped again and spoke into her glass. “God censor.” 

She took another sip and he was overcome with the last emotion he expected to have in a moment like the one he was experiencing. He covered his mouth quickly, but it was already too late. She heard him laugh at her and was not impressed. 

Karen turned to him and saw the smile disappear immediately. “This is funny?”

“No, it’s just… You’re adorable, and...“ He stopped when the blood rushed to her cheeks. She was glaring at him. He could feel her staring daggers and resisted the impulse to saunter away. “Look, you’re wrong about all of that. That date was amazing. That week was amazing. Everything you felt in every kiss was real. And it wrecked me too, Karen…” his own fury returned as he thought about how badly he had failed her. “I can’t believe that you think you’re not good enough for me. I’ve screwed things up so badly between us, I— I can’t even count all the times on two hands anymore.”

She brushed him off and took another gulp. “You’d be so surprised. Matt. I’ve really become… _something_ since I left that firm that made me so happy and then so… sad. I’m not nearly the pathetic wreck you’re listening to on this couch. Not to them anyway.” He nodded and didn’t bother asking about her new life and her new co-workers. He knew it wasn’t the time and it’d hurt too much anyway. 

After the day he’d had, he couldn’t help but be a little selfish.

She leaned forward and looked at the pile of mail on his coffee table. One letter lay to the side, separated from all the other envelopes, already opened and clearly jammed back into its envelope. It was from the New York State Bar Association. She picked it up and removed the letter.

“What's this?”

“It’s nothing.” He shook his head and reached out but she pulled it toward her. 

She leaned back against him and unfolded the piece of paper. “It doesn’t _look_ like nothing.”

He touched her shoulder, but she still ignored him. “Karen, please—”

It was written in ink, like the person who’d typed it up didn’t bother to wonder if the man they were about to destroy could actually see. 

“Oh my God, Matt! You’re being _subpoenaed_!”

“It's a mistake. I’m—I’m calling about it tomorrow…” 

“It says you have to appear _next week_ —“

He gulped before trying to force a small smile. 

“Don't worry about it Karen“ 

“They’re advising you to bring a lawyer... This— _this is really bad_.“ He tried to hold back the anger from what the letter implied. He wanted to focus on the problem at hand. But he had so many fires to put out right now. 

_That’s what happens when you pour lighter fluid on your life and light a match,_ he thought.

“It's fine. I'll sort it all out.“ The last thing he wanted was for her to worry about him when she was so torn up. But at the same time, he felt relieved that someone else could share his burden and he hated himself that much more for it. 

“Why would you let me go on about…” Her eyes grew wide. “Oh my God did I say all that out loud?” She prayed it was all a dream, pinching herself and feeling the sting. “ _Damn_ it!”

“Karen…”

She stood up. “I have to go—“

“Karen, you have nothing to—“ 

“—Jump off bridge. I have to go jump… off a bridge.” It was the perfect time for her hiccups to return.

He smiled. “You aren’t going to do that. And you can’t get into your apartment because you don't have your purse… or your _keys_...”

She turned toward him and pointed at the liquor bottle. “ _You_! Drink enough to forget everything I just said.”

He smiled sadly. “I don't think that's how it works.” She didn’t realize why the bottle and glass had already been on the table, but he knew he was still coherent enough to remember everything the next day. “But I’m already tipsy anyway. I’ll probably forget.”

She pointed at him angrily. “You’re lying.”

He couldn’t help but smile.

“Why are you so difficult!”

His smile grew into something even more genuine. 

“No, no, Murdock. You put those away right now!”

“Put what away?” He wondered if she was past the point of making any sense. “Maybe it’s time for bed, Karen.” She sat back down in defiance, crossing her arms as she glared at him. 

“Don’t act like I’m unintelligible, Matt.” She tripped up on the word, but she blew right over that. “I’m talking about those wrinkles around your eyes. And who gave you the right to wear tight shirts like _that_?” She ran her finger up his stomach and bit her lip, ending her gaze at his eyes. “How are you still so… _Daredevil_ after being broken for over a month? _Nuns_ shouldn’t have had to see this.” She had gestured at his stomach and face, shaking her head. 

 

He chuckled and the wrinkles became more defined. He didn’t want to say that this was him _out of shape_. Well, he wanted to if it made her more interested, but that was the alcohol influencing his thoughts and he knew he didn’t deserve it. Instead he touched her hand and smiled. 

She drifted her hand over his and ran her fingers over his knuckles. She wanted so many things in that moment. She didn’t even realize that she’d gone through about ten different emotions in the span of 15 minutes. She was too busy staring at a man who had seemed unreachable so many times before. Sitting in front of her, begging for forgiveness.

“Matt, can you… can you just humor me? For a second?” He licked his lips nervously and nodded, but he looked completely confused. Her heartbeat was somehow more steady as she moved to straddle him, and his hands automatically went to her waist. Her right hand caressed his jawline, and she dragged her fingers toward his mouth, drawing outline of his top lip.

Matt placed his hand over two of her fingers and pushed them against his lips into a kiss. She didn’t make the connection that his glasses were missing; she was too focused on the way he lovingly closed his eyes.

She tilted her head and smiled as she leaned in to kiss him, and he responded like it was something he’d done a hundred times. They never had a problem forgetting about the world around them as they gave in to each other. It was part of the reason everything had been so hard as the world started to fall apart. Even when she was angry with him, she wanted to have one more chance to make it better. 

Matt leaned into the couch as she stroked his well-past 5 o’clock shadow, trying to keep himself together even though his hands had found their way under her shirt. They stayed just below her rib cage, which was difficult considering she had lowered herself over his thighs, and begun to roll her hips over him. He moved his right hand to her neck, massaging into the base of her head and through her hair. Her breaths grew short, her kisses intensified, causing him to let out a short breath. 

It was enough to make her realize what she was doing. 

Karen pulled away from him, tilting her forehead against his as he smiled sadly. They were right back where they'd started. She was hurt and angry and he was the reason. 

She felt an unquestionable sadness fill her as his hands loosened against her waist and he nodded 

She hugged him and rested her head on his shoulder and he petted the back of her head. His grip was desperate and she closed her eyes and took short breaths that he felt against his neck. She hated making him feel worse, but her brain wasn’t done with the questions. Questions she never had the chance to ask and thought she never would

Karen was perfectly aware that it was her and not Foggy who was drunk on his doorstep, and she knew what it all meant. She had told Frank Castle that she wasn’t in love with him nearly a year ago; and she’d told herself the same thing a thousand times since. But here she was. Not ready for the fight to be over. Begging him to try to make her understand. 

She pressed her fingers into the back of his neck and ran them gently over his throat and face. He knew she wanted to say something, so he waited patiently as she tried to fight it.

“Your excuse that night was that it had been _perfect_ and you didn’t want to ruin it…” She shook her head. “How would coming inside have made things go from great to terrible? ” She sniffled. “How did I _buy_ that? How did _you_ buy it? _What did you have to lose,_ Matt?”

He sighed. 

“It was a really big step, Karen.”

She nodded against his shoulder. All of the thing that had been left unsaid and she was suddenly the self-conscious ex who needed the truth. Two sides of herself fought and the one that won out was the one that had accepted the fact that she was already going down that road. Why stop now when she might get some actual answers?

“I think you knew that would be _it_ , Matt. You couldn't blow me off later and treat me like you did after we… _if we had_ … not in your mind. So you opted out entirely and then you… you went to see her.”

“I went to her to tell her to leave me alone, Karen. I needed her to get out of my head.”

She lifted her head and looked him dead on. “Because you were _thinking_ of her? When you were with me?” Her lip quivered and his heart was in pieces on the floor. She recovered quickly. “That’s not… it’s fine, Matt. You were allowed to feel however you… _we weren’t_ …”

“No, no, Karen, please… please don’t think that I chose another person over you— not after that night…” he was exasperated. “Damn it! I’ve had a _year_. A year to think of all of my mistakes and all the ways I betrayed you. And even with everything, I was so worried after telling you that I was Daredevil, I didn’t even _consider_ … please _— please_ don’t think _you_ _weren’t enough_! _Please…_ ”

She swallowed and tried to sound the least amount of pathetic she could be. “Then _why,_ Matt?”

He took a breath and tried to explain himself. “I knew she was manipulating me and I let it get to me, because… She broke my heart. She brought my father's killer into it and when I failed… I thought there was something wrong with me. And clearly there is, but that’s…” he sighed. He could give her a list of ways he hated himself, but he didn’t want to remind her. He knew how selfish that was. 

She could see the angry tears in his eyes as he continued,

“And then she thought she could walk back into my life and I just wanted it to stop… she called me at the restaurant. The first restaurant we went to. _That’s_ the reason I wanted to leave. That place wasn’t me, but I was trying to be a good date, and she knew it. I’m a fraud, Karen.”

Karen had always wondered what prompted Matt to leave the first location of their date. She didn’t know what to make of it, but it was definitely something she wanted to think about when she wasn’t drunk. If she remembered. 

“You didn’t have to do that, Matt. You know me. You know I never needed expensive. I’d be happy on a park bench with hot dogs, for God’s sake.”

_“I know_. But we’ve been around each other so much, I—I wanted to impress you when you never needed any of that. You didn’t try to change me, I... but I let her get into my head. And you—you _still_ found a way to make it better.” He shook his head and she started feeling guilty. “Karen, Stick was behind everything. He used her because he knew she had feelings for me. The man practically _raised_ her, for God’s sake and he used her to…” the thought made him sick. “Nothing was ever real. He never loved me and he never loved her. We were just pawn in his stupid war.” He paused as if he was still coming to conclusions after all the time that passed. “I got out, but she… she didn’t.”

Karen sighed. Every new piece of information made her hurt for the both of them. She didn’t know Elektra, but the woman obviously had issues. 

In that they were very much alike.

“I'm not as damaged as her, Matt, but you never realized…” Her eyes stung from the tears. “You always need someone to save, but you couldn’t see that I was losing it—“ her voice broke as she held back sobs. “and I was right in front of you. You didn’t care enough to find out.” 

She drifted off, staring at the other side of the room that was lit by the obnoxious billboard. “I’ve made so many terrible mistakes.”

“You’re wrong, Karen.”

 

_“Don't say that when you don't know_.” Her seriousness scared him. He wrung his hands, his tone turned tragic. 

“Then tell me. I’m here _now,_ Karen.”

She shook her head. After everything she’d been through, having _that_ conversation would surely break her. But her ever-increasing fear mixed with the drunken anger outweighed her logical side. “He’s going to find me and you'll know what it's like to be alone. It's what I deserve, and maybe… maybe it’s for the best. You didn’t need me _before_. Why would you need me now?”

Fear spread over his face as he narrowed his eyes. She could tell he was desperate for more information, but she couldn’t handle it. She got up and looked for a way out as he sat stunned.

“I need to... um…” she looked around the apartment like she didn’t have a clue what she needed. “I’m going to take a shower.”

He nodded too many times and she forced herself to leave as her words hung in the air.

_He’s going to find me._

She didn’t mean the Punisher… He knew too well that she didn’t have negative feelings for him. He didn’t know enough about her past to know if it was someone from Vermont. She was worried about Fisk finding out that she was with Ben at the nursing home at one point, but that seemed pretty thin. He had spent so long worrying about his own secrets that he hadn’t even asked her about what she was holding back.

How many more ways had he failed her?

Matt racked his brain as he grabbed a fresh towel and some clothes for her to sleep in and slipped them inside the bathroom door. He changed and grabbed a pillow and blanket for the couch, leaving them in the living room and heading to the roof. He wanted her to have some space if she needed. He walked back inside twenty minutes later and heard her. She was still awake, staring at the ceiling and blinking away tears. 

“Karen?”

She cleared her throat. “Come in.” He slid the door open the rest of the way and she rolled over as he bent on his knees. 

“Can I please say something?”

She gulped and nodded. 

He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her, choosing instead to rest his hand on the edge of the bed. She didn’t seem to have a problem with that, but she didn’t touch him back.

“No version of my life would ever be better without you in it.” He sniffled, “I do need you. I always have. but that doesn’t mean I _deserve_ to have you in my life.”

The silence was unbearable. She was trying to say something that made sense, but she was also paranoid that it was too late for that. 

“When I lost you, I-- I lost… everything. Even with the anger and sadness it was so much worse, Matt. I don’t know how… you were my best friend. You and Foggy were my family. And it took a long time for him to be ok around me. I just remind him of you and what you threw away. And the way you did it? I don’t want to be that person who feels so lost because of a failed relationship. I still hate myself for that.”

He ran his fingers through her wet hair and shook his head sadly. “It was never…” She saw his face contort as he tried to continue and her lip quivered as she waited as patiently as she could.

“She was the first woman I ever loved, and it was so hard to say no to what she was offering. And that was a freedom to be myself with her. It wasn’t about being together like we had been before. It was just easier because she knew everything and I didn’t have to explain my motivation for why I wanted… why I _liked_ being Daredevil.” He sighed. “You were the first woman I ever imagined myself with. You were the one I wanted to…” He couldn't say “grow old with,” because he threw it all away and “old” wasn't an option in her mind. 

“You may think that, Matt. But you made a choice. And I just can't wrap my head around the fact that…” she shook her head against the pillow as she tried her hardest not to sound any more desperate. “You opened up to her, but you didn't trust me. Not as your friend, not as your girlfriend…” she choked on a sob in her throat. “You… You didn’t want _me_. You kissed me and went to see her…” He felt the tears fall off her face and onto his shirt and he was so angry with himself his hands shook. He raised one of them to her cheek and caressed it as she continued. “I just wanted you. I only ever wanted you. I'd do anything for you— even now. It's pathetic how much I—” 

“I didn't tell her, Karen. She figured it out. And you were the one I was scared about telling. You idolized Daredevil, you were the one person who vouched for him. I didn't want to disappoint you. I couldn't lose you. Not after what almost happened with Foggy…”

Every mistake he’d made had been for fear of losing the people he cared about most. He felt like he was living in a never-ending loop of failing those who loved him. But he wasn’t about to make things worse. Worse would be telling her that he’d loved her and he didn’t think she could feel the same with all of his demons. That that month of his life had been like watching a car crash in slow motion and doing nothing about it.

He knew there was nothing he could say, but he had to try. “I know it sounds like bullshit, but I was so self-destructive back then… I still am but at least I recognize it now. I focused on the things I was good at and I let them come between us. And look at what I did. I was right back then. I don’t deserve you and Foggy. I don’t deserve to be happy after what I did.”

He kissed her forehead and she looked up at him. 

“Neither do I.”

His mouth hung open as she rolled over. “I won't do this again, don't worry, Matt. Sad crying Karen comes out one time only… After her barely an ex-boyfriend dies and then comes back.” 

She spoke under her breath, but he heard it loud and clear: “God, I fucking hate myself,”

Tears streamed from his eyes. “I’m so sorry I did this to you, Karen.”

He walked away and closed the door as she whispered to herself. “Don’t be sorry, Matt. Just be… Better. Please be better. ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this, but I really want to post before DDS3, so, here you go.


End file.
